The Leonard Bernstein Letters (13 page)

Lennie, old mole,

I have just finished reading Hemingway's new novel from the galley proofs and am still a little breathless.
⁷⁷
A master stroke managing to get hold of those proofs, involving larceny of some proportion. But she's a novel, old gum drop, a book of infinite insight and agony and the soul of a man hovering halo fashion over the brow of his body while he kills with cold savagery. Writing that positively
gooses
you! Hemingway saw Spain cameo-clear; and his book is just two years – two? Four! – too late and its anger will cause not a ripple in the hysteria of warmaking. 'Twill be just a good novel by Hemingway about something out of ancient history. The people who will realize what it is he is saying will already know, and there it will end.

Where have you been, old sausagefoot? Aeons have whirled their course since that card from Tanglewood. Not a word. I suppose by this late date you have a devoted slave in the Kouss. I thought as much. Indirect word of you from Austin, who described you as “forging ahead” and deciding with some acumen, I think, that he (A.) and Kenneth needed a kick in the pants. Back at Curtis? What? All the days crammed to the brim that I must know about. Successes. Quiff. Friends. Plans. Already written, in the writing, to be written. Prospects. Aaron. On and on, and I want to hear about it all. So to it, Rosinante, to the road again; get thee pants and write me a letter that will consume at least a morning of MGM's time in the reading. Trust me to kill the afternoon.

I won't even mention the draft. It's just too goddamn funny to even talk about. One thing: what are you going to do? Me, I can't wait until the army makes a man of me. Can't decide between the air force and fighting my war toying with some secretary's breasts. Simply
can't
decide. We live in parlous times, halvah, old boy, very. Dies irae, dies illa, solvet saeclum in favilla. But yes.

Hattie arrives in some two weeks to take over not only my care and feeding but also the not inconsiderable job of delivering me from the financial toils. I make enough money for three men, and am a pauper, yea, I sit among the ashes and for garments sackcloth. I'm tooting madly about looking at houses. To date, nothing I like.
Must
find something within the week.

Of my tenuous existence, trivia. The Eisner soul grows small and curls inward like the anemone to confess that he has ghosted two (I must be very
tired or something) jobs for a quickie studio, for the gain of silver.
⁷⁸
One, a mouse called
Thirty Boys and a Girl
(subtitle: The Gangfuck) has just been finished. Shooting time: six days. Budget: 10 grand. So you can imagine. No, you can't imagine. But the banks honor their checks, if you worry them into giving it to you. Working here at Metro with a couple of German Jew writers whose English is even worse than their script which is negligible. We communicate in mangled French, English and German. Nice people though: one an outspoken anarchist. All for the assassination of L.B. Mayer (after the expiration of his contract, of course). The other is a gourmet who drags me about to restaurants of stature and flies into tantrums if the béarnaise sauce is not up to his idea of sauce béarnaise. One night he insisted on going to the kitchen and bawling out the chef. I was sure he was going to get a meat cleaver in his head. Nip and tuck there for a minute.

Taking a course in the novel given by the League of American Writers school here, more as discipline to make me sit down more often to an already started novel, than in the hope of learning anything. Some very wacky people in that class: I expect murder before the month is out. And River
⁷⁹
(
The Torguts
) to have nervous prostration. Also a new story of mine will appear in
The Clipper
, a literary monthly put out by the League pretending to some excellence. Be in excellent company anyway: Dreiser, Meyer Levin, Belfrage, others. I think every writer in America is either here or on his way. You meet them all.

Intended coming home this month, but Mother Metro like the python has me in her coils. In the spring. Letter from Ann and Nathan today: they desire word of you. And remember, it's
Keats
. So heavyhearted, I go home to my cell and it's another day. Write, sluggard, hear the voice crying in the wilderness and write.

Con brio,

Al

Dear Lenny,

Henry Cowell
⁸⁰
forwarded your little “critique” to me, asking me to get some definite plan worked out for the recording. Naturally, I don't feel the way you do
about the 3rd fugue and neither do I approve of a series of preludes. If I had wanted that, I would have written them without the fugues. And Lenny, perhaps your kind of musicianly temperament will be the kind that succeeds best because it turns hot and cold easiest, but in the long run you will find your own way of treating music (the way John Kirkpatrick does by the way, but instead of saying “dull”, he says, “quasi-baroque”) to be the merest surface glazing. It seems incredible to me, that in this short time, you can already pronounce so dark a verdict on the several fugues, when I'm sure, knowing your high-pressure endocrine system, that you could hardly have spent much concentrated effort on them since Cowell got the music back to you. I can only say that I believe in the 3rd Prelude and Fugue whole, that if the fugue to you seems dull, it is like X telling me much of the
Art of Fugue
and the
Great Fugue
is dry and paper-music. The art of counterpoint is a true art. It has to be realized before one can say things pro or con. And to realize the 16th century masters, much of late Bach and Beethoven, the Stravinsky of
Persephone
and the
Symphonie de Psaumes
, the fugue from Bartók's
Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta
, we must first know the notes so well, the line so accurately and the nuances so perfectly and rightly proportioned, we should be able to reconstruct the works ourselves. You will say, but I am no sixteenth century master, Bach, Beethoven, Stravinsky, or Bartók – but my aims and purposes are the same, my deep compassion for the past the same and my belief in the future the same. Lots of Reger may be dull, but not this baby. I've learned when to stop the machine in time of crisis! When you employ the word
dull
to the 3rd fugue, you are simply failing to unmask the secret character behind the piece.

As Cowell seems very pressed, I promised I would write at once ill or not. I've been in bed over a week with a serious streptococcus infection. This is really my first day up. But back to the recording: no, I don't OK the prelude idea – sounds too easy à la Bernstein. The original plan is the one I hold to. If you feel the matter much too taxing to go through because the fugue is dull, just write and tell Cowell so. I'm getting more and more used to this kind of thing. There are fewer and fewer kindred spirits left each year. By the time this war is over, there will be none. If you take yourself by both your shoulders, for a change, work the notes carefully, you'll find the fugue will grow quite rapidly inside of you. Let me know what you decide. And if you go ahead, I'll send you $2 with which to make a test recording for me as I will not be able to come to NY. Make it in Philadelphia at a reliable recording place and send it to me, and I'll write right back about tempo etc. All good things ever, and let Cowell know at once what you've decided.

David

Dear David,

I was shocked by your letter. I'm afraid you misunderstood. I intended no criticism of the music
per se
, but simply referred to the probable reaction of a record audience. I suggested that the 3rd fugue, unpianistic and unrelieved as it is, might be an unfortunate choice with which to introduce yourself via recording. If you want it, then certainly I will be glad to do it.
⁸¹

But why the maleure? I understand that you've been ill, and down, and probably out, and kind of out of the world, but, Lord, David, – “too easy à la Bernstein” – “take yourself by your shoulders for a change”, etc. etc. And I thought you knew me better than to intimate that I would make superficial dicta about music. Believe me, I know what the fugue is worth. I can list for you all the fine points – your achievements in it. But there are “stains”; your second stretto, for instance, is anticlimactic because it is a four-measure stretto, whereas the preceding one was a
one
-measure stretto. This is especially true of a subject in unrelieved half-notes. Again, you speak of nuances to be mastered thoroughly – but you haven't
one
in the piece except the opening
ff
! From my point of view there must be a dynamic growth – involving especially a drop to
piano
in the 17th measure, to rise to the final climactic stretto, & possibly the same thing again (modified) before the second stretto. Write me what you think of this. And is [ = 63 strictly to be maintained throughout?

I shall make a test record as soon as possible & send it to you. Let me know about the above very soon. And please keep well, & somewhat happier.

Best,

Lenny

Dear Lennie,

I am happy that you have decided upon the fugue too. As I look over the letter you sent to Mr. Cowell, it is true that you were thinking of recording purposes, but all the same
that
word is there thus: “The third prelude is good but the fugue is
dull
…” etc. – and to me that still pertains to the music, recording
or not. I won't argue the point further, for we seem to be beyond that now. Furthermore, I think you should have realized by now that I'm pretty stupid on consideration to be given the purely commercial aspects of music. Where public relations are concerned I simply don't function nor want to. And whether one makes the right start in recording works by choosing the best to represent the composer on discs doesn't interest me either since no one cares how a composer is introduced or in what order. It's the music that counts in the long run. Where Aaron for example should have made his bow on discs with say,
Music for the Theater
or
Hear Ye, Hear Ye
, he made it with the
Piano Variations
and
Vitebsk
and that would seem wrong but nevertheless that is how he began and it makes no difference to anyone. People still hate the
Variations
and eat up the
Salón México
, alors? So don't worry your pretty head about the introduction part of it; “c'est la musique qui compte” as [Nadia] Boulanger always said to me when I would pose such questions as you have brought up. Truly, dear Lennie, I don't care a double fuck for anything dehors de la musique. You know that, why worry about it, no one else does, time takes care of all the necessary sifting out.

Now about the music: I don't agree about the drop to a
piano
at the 17th measure, lawsy no! After the full strong half note pulse with accents and the general
ff
, it would only appear as an affectation! I should have right in the first measure put
sempre
after the
ff
. It should be
ff
throughout and always a quarter to 63 with the natural push forward towards 70 circa which happens by itself. It must be very sustained, very bold, the notes will provide the necessary
espressivo
I believe. The chord quality at measure 17 is sufficient to stir emotionally anyone capable of being touched by the chord without changing the dynamics. You mistake my meaning of the word, nuance; it does not mean dynamics – I'd rather it meant conception and feeling for the natural flow and modulation of the whole musical line,
chiaro
? I'm not worried in the least, I know you'll do a beauty of a job. And if you can keep a secret, a venture is afoot which will mean much for both of us if it works out with Victor. I enclose $2 for the test recording and as soon as I've heard it, I shall let you know my feelings.

Why let us start a series of polemics? You say I should know you by now, I can hardly agree with that. You never allowed me to, ever. I tried in so many ways to know you better, looked forward to seeing you in NY, but you didn't come last spring, came to Tanglewood to see you but got a cold shoulder […] At Yaddo […] I was simply hurt by the strain you forced to exist in not being open enough about your true feelings. It would have been far better to have said, “David, understand that there can be no physical relationship between us, therefore I'd rather not stay with you tonight.” […] It's all right though now. Nothing matters much right now.

Always,

David

Dear LLLLLLL,

Your latest burned the end of my fingers. The next one will probably burn up en route. All I can say is that you've made rapid progress. All that's missing is for you to fall in love with a hermaphroditic goat … or sumpin’.

I vaguely remember the Mr. Nelson you mentioned. It was two years ago on the way to France. It was his great moment – just at the age when the world seems too too wonderful, and he [was] sought after by all the most desirable creatures, a different bed every night, etc., etc. That type is the worst after the first fresh glow of youth is gone. All his stories are rot, of course.

The enclosure by D[avid] D[iamond] is also sumpin! The less said the better. There is a frighteningly dumb and humorless streak in the boy.

I'm up to my neck in fussing over the new loft. V[ictor Kraft]'s dark room is sumptuous, but all my things are strewn to the four corners of the joint. It's awful – I'll never move again.

Don't forget to listen in on Sat. at 9:35.
⁸²

Love,

A